


I'll Get You Home

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Series: I Promise You It's Worth It [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Christmas, Christmas Presents, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hanukkah, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, LGBTQ Themes, Professor Tony Stark, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Trans Peter Parker, it's only briefly mentioned but i promise actual hanukkah themed fics are coming, top surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28235109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: May’s definitely weeping now, and she no longer makes an effort to hide it. “We probably should’ve called the nurse in by now. I mean, definitely. But a tiny peek was--” Words fail her.“It was good,” Peter says simply. He sucks in a huge breath, tries to slap his palms to his cheeks, then remembers that he can hardly move his arms, and settles on a quiet little scream. May huffs out a laugh in the middle of her crying like she wasn’t expecting that, but really, she isn’t surprised by her boy at all.Tony curves up a brow at him. “Oh, yeah? Feels that good to get it off your chest?”Peter’s expression morphs so rapidly from pure elation to flat disappointment that even Tony, in the midst of his self-loathing, has to cackle at it. “Mr. Stark. Tell mehonestlyhow long you’ve been waiting to tell that joke.”“I may have utilized Google.”“You’re banned from teaching me any jokes, like, ever.”“Cut me some slack, Parker. This is the first time I get to make a trans joke without it feeling weird.”--Or: Peter gets top surgery a year after Ben's death, and Tony's there to step into the shoes waiting to be filled.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: I Promise You It's Worth It [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1365187
Comments: 43
Kudos: 123





	I'll Get You Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transpeterparker (robertmontauk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robertmontauk/gifts).



> This is for my buddy Charlie, one of the kindest and sweetest and bravest people I know in this fandom. I'm so glad we got to know each other and I'm *beyond* proud of your journey, brother.
> 
> Reading the companion piece, [We Won't Reach Back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350124), isn't necessary, but you're welcome to if you want to understand more of the references to Peter telling Tony about Ben's death. Personally I'm kind of proud of how that one was written. :)
> 
> Trigger warning for hospitals, if that bothers you!
> 
> Theme song and title inspiration: "I'll Get You Home" by By the Coast (I swear this series has the best of my best music recs)

With the past forty-odd years of his life being safely categorized as weird, out of the ordinary, and sometimes plain batshit crazy, Tony doesn’t think anything will jump out to him as strange anymore. Still, he’s got to admit that with the occasional texting that he and Peter do nowadays and the sort-of semi-parental thing they’ve accidentally got going on in May Parker’s eyes, it’s still hella weird to hear the kid knock at his office door.

Granted, he did close it to temporarily shut out the delightful sounds of the printer wheezing down the hall and his overly chatty neighbor advising her third-year student so he could get a solid half hour of yoga in.

“Speak, friend, and enter,” he calls cheerily at the door. He doesn’t have to make a Tolkien reference twice for Peter to tumble through the door--apparently by abusing the doorknob with his elbows and booting in the bottom with his sneaker.

Tony jackknifes to his feet with his hands out to catch whatever it is in Parker’s grasp that could go flying at any minute. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what gives, kid? Why do you have a--is that a Christmas tree wrapped in Whole Foods paper bags,” he finishes flatly.

Peter sets down the aforementioned amorphous lump on his desk with a huff. “It’s a Christmas tree made out of other things. And honestly--what. What could possess you to even think I shop at Whole Foods?” He turns around with a toothy, winsome smile.

Tony twists his mouth with a shrug. “Cheapest grocery store I could think of.”

Peter stares at him. “There’s literally a Walmart across from campus.”

Tony does the very professional thing in this moment and resists the overpowering urge to roll his eyes. “Thanks, Pete,” he opts to say instead. He shoves one hand in the pocket of his slacks and nods at the...the thing tilting to one side on his desk. “Am I allowed to open it now, good sir? Or will you keep me in suspense?”

“No, no, o’fen it,” Peter urges him around the pilly striped glove caught between his teeth. He yanks the other glove off, pockets it impatiently, and slides the paper bag contraption over to his professor with both hands. He stands back a moment, then darts out a hand to give the thing a nervous pat on top. Then he twists his thumbs together in front of him.

Tony sets out to do just that. He gestures at Pete to take his favorite springy chair in front of the desk, while he himself rolls out the office chair from behind so that they’re seated next to each other rather than face-to-face. He doesn’t quite know when he made a conscious decision to stop putting the desk between him and the kid, but he knows deep down that between Peter having to come out to him in his office and later telling him about Ben’s death from across the barrier, he no longer wanted the kid to ever feel like he wasn’t in a completely safe space.

The man has to raise a brow when he rips through the two layers of brown recycled paper and reveals a tower of baked goods lovingly wrapped in plastic and...twine? Jute rope? “Classy,” he remarks, infusing every ounce of sincerity he can into his voice.

“I actually got them from Mrs. Leeds,” the kid says with a round gesture of his hand. He shoves his palms together into the crack between his thighs and jiggles his knees. “I was down there last weekend helping her and Ned decorate, and she likes all this, like, organic-looking stuff, and there was some extra and I was welcome to take it. So.”

“No, no, yeah, this is--this is great,” says Tony. Okay, wow, he is not having a lump-in-his-throat moment, thank you very much. He gently eases the first plastic package out from under the ribbons and turns it over. “Do I smell dates?”

“Coffee date bread,” Peter affirms with a grin. This time as his knees jiggle, the tops of his sneakers knock together happily. Tony suppresses a little grin to himself at the sight.

“You and May make these?”

Peter swallows down a snort. “Really?”

Tony holds up his hands, one still holding the little loaf. “Just checking. People change, y’know.”

That pulls another easy smile from Peter. Tony finds himself admitting without difficulty now that it’s his favorite look on his advisee.

“I got into baking at the end of the summer,” Pete explains. “I basically made May my guinea pig, and she complained a lot until I reminded her of everything she’s put me through. Lovingly, of course. And then Ned started helping me and actually? It really got me somewhere. Did you know his dad’s parents used to own a bake shop in Manila? I mean, eventually it got shut down when his parents got other plans to move to America, plus it wasn’t like there were any other heirs who could, like, keep it up and running besides Ned’s dad, but anyway that’s beside the point because what I’m trying to say is, I think the baker’s touch just sorta _runs_ through Ned’s veins…”

Tony sniffs--his perennial habit nowadays when it’s taking every inch of his willpower not to crack an indulgent smile at Pete’s rambling. He’s pretty convinced at this point that Parker has got undiagnosed ADHD or something, speaking from nothing else than personal experience, but that’s another conversation for another time.

“Thanks for this. Really. Thanks a lot.” Tony hefts another packet in his hand and takes a peek. “Ohh, date bars.”

“Ned’s grandparents call them ‘Food for the Gods’.”

“Oh, I bet,” Tony says kindly. He eyes the rest of the stack. “Is everything here date-themed?”

“Sort of? There’s the random choco banana muffins toward the bottom. I thought, uh, I thought Mrs. Pepper might like them,” Peter tacks on.

“She sure would. Hey. Pete. Thanks for this.” Tony thinks he can get away with a shoulder pat and a light squeeze without it giving either of them too much heartburn from the awkwardness, so he goes for it. The kid’s face lights up.

“I don’t, uh…” Tony clears his throat. “I don’t exactly have my Christmas present for you here. I mean, it’s kind of here? But not _here_ here.”

“Oh, no, no, Professor Stark, it’s fine, I wasn’t--totally wasn’t expecting a gift back.”

The man lifts a brow. “‘Professor’?”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter corrects himself dutily. “Seriously. It’s fine.”

“Nope, I actually have something for you, Pete, I promise. I just wasn’t prepared with it for today. It’s--what, barely the first week of December?”

“I’m an overachiever. We’ve been over this,” Pete says. “Anyway, I wanted to get this to you before the semester ended. Or, like, before finals rolled around. Which--rude.”

Tony sniffs and grins in agreement. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s--” The kid starts and stops. He scratches the crown of his head and then his chin. “I also wanted to...well. I had a card made out and everything to stick in your mailbox, but I wanted to say it personally instead, I guess.”

“All the better,” Tony says dryly, “considering I never check my mailbox.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says reproachfully.

He bats a hand in Peter’s direction. “It’s across the rotunda. I couldn’t possibly be bothered. Unless, of course,” he corrects himself, “you stick something in there with your own two hands. Then text me next time, and I’ll jog over there real quick and check it myself.”

“Um,” says Peter, frankly overwhelmed with what is, in Tony Stark language, practically a casual love letter. “Well. No need for that anymore, ’cause the card is there at the bottom of the stack. Do _not_ read it now, please,” he adds hastily when his professor makes as if to sift through the baked goods for the card.

“More cheerful bedtime reading for me, then,” Tony quips. He gestures at the package of date bars with raised brows, and Peter understands the implicit question and replies with a nod. The man gets up to pull out a stack of napkins from the top drawer of his desk and unwraps the bars with a loud crinkle of plastic to divvy up two pieces for each of them.

“So,” says Tony, as he rounds the corner of the desk to rejoin Peter, having noticed that the kid’s made no move to get up just yet, “how’s everything going? Aside from the whole...y’know… _screaming into your pillow at four in the morning because of exams_ thing.”

“I don’t think I’ve really had time for much else,” Peter says. “But. Yeah. I’m good. I was thinking about some ideas for my thesis, actually, and since you’re my advisor, well, I thought you could…” Peter casts about for the right word. “Advise.”

Tony chomps on the corner of his date bar--which, heavenly--who gave the kid the right to produce something this _divine_ \--and he points at Peter fondly. “You’re a junior. I thought you’re a junior?”

“Overachiever?” Peter reminds him.

“This is amazing,” says Tony. “I meant the bar. Well, your level of motivation--also amazing. Though a little worrying too. We’ll get to that.” He waves a hand. “First, tell me what you got.”

So Peter does, with a jiggling knee and around mouthfuls of sticky date bar, interrupted only when his professor wets some extra napkins with a bottle of water and hands them to him to wipe off his fingers.

“You’re right, it could possibly involve IRB approval. Not my area of expertise, honestly, but I could always consult with my colleague Bruce, and then I’ll let you know what he thinks,” Tony muses. “But back to my main point: yes, you’re a bit early in the process. Nothing wrong with that, though, since ideas can always change. They _should_ change. It’s healthy for you. So let’s do this--I’ll check in with Bruce before the semester is over, and then once we know what he says, it’ll be winter break and you’ll be back home. Then we can revisit this conversation next semester, yeah? And start looking at some early deadlines for grants? How’s that sound?”

Peter nods. He’s suddenly mute, and he occupies himself with rubbing the pad of his right thumb over the heel of his left palm. Tony’s gaze dips down to the nervous tic and he quickly rewinds in his head what he just said.

“How’s May doing?” he asks, more softly this time. The shift in his tone gets Peter to look up at him immediately, because they may not admit it, but the man has two different voices when he speaks to the kid. One for the office, and the other for...well. Not exactly home, but Tony’s beginning to think of the Parker apartment and his own sense of personal space as blended into one, despite what he may tell himself.

It takes Peter a while to decide on which truth to tell him. “She’s okay,” he finally says, and he sounds like he believes he’s being honest. “This year is better.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“It’s not snowing this time,” Peter remarks, straightening up and jutting his chin out at the window behind Tony’s desk.

Tony follows his gaze. The comment would seem out of left field to anyone else, but Tony understands. This time last year, the two of them were picking their way around mountains of snow across campus as they cut a slow and painful path to the Provost’s Office to file for Peter’s leave of absence. The cold-lighted crispness of the December afternoon outside today is a welcome change for them both.

“No,” Tony murmurs. “No, it’s not.” He sets down the last bit of his bar on the napkin on the edge of the desk and sits back, folding his hands together over his stomach. He dares to nudge the leg of the chair Peter’s sitting on with the toe of his shoe. “And how are you doing?”

Pete looks up at him. He’s gotten better over the past year or so at hiding the things that lurk in the shine of his eyes, but Tony’s not to be outdone: he’s also gotten better at reading the boy.

“Keeping busy,” is what Peter says, just as careful, just as quiet. No more jokes about screaming in pillows or going through three packs of ramen in a day.

Something has shifted in the air. Tony is used to this by now. Peter is a soul of many sides--intellectual, witty, happy-go-lucky--and his vulnerable side is the one that by far gets shoved in the deepest recesses of his closet, but Tony is by no means a stranger to the sound of it.

“Pete,” he says, at the same time that Peter draws a long breath and opens his mouth and says, “Mr. Stark?”

The man stops and gestures for him to go ahead.

“There was something else I wanted to tell you, and--uh, it was really weird writing about it in the card. And, like, I guess I got a little worried about somebody seeing it if the card got lost or opened or something. Which wasn’t like my _main_ concern, but--”

“Pete,” Tony says again. “I’m listening.”

Which is his absolute professional way of saying _just spit it out, kid_ , because a part of him still feels wrong about expressing that easy familiarity between them in this space on campus.

“Ben,” Peter rushes on, like the name is a live coal he has to swallow, “Uncle Ben--last year, when I went home for Thanksgiving? Uh. He took me to the clinic and he got me booked on the waiting list. Since I was already over eighteen and everything. Waiting list for--top surgery.”

The unconscious twiddling of Tony’s thumbs slows to a halt.

“The waiting list was a year long. Which wasn’t too bad, considering some people in other parts of the country have to wait for two years, and I don’t even know the situation in other countries…”

“Yeah,” Tony affirms. “I get it.”

Peter blows out a breath. He places his palms flat, carefully, against his thighs, and swings his elbows out to buttress the weight of his torso with the tension in his arms. Tony knows that look, he can read the tensing in the muscles of Peter’s neck, and it worries him. He’s gotten better at handling Peter, true, at knowing when to speak and when to listen, but he still feels way out of his fucking depth every time the kid decides to trust him with this part of his journey.

And then it all clicks, and Tony feels like an actual idiot.

“Pete,” he says. “What date is your surgery?”

The boy won’t look at him. “December 16. Two days after my last final, actually.”

Tony isn’t privy to the look in Peter’s eyes right this moment, but the cast of his side profile against the backlight filtering in from the window is in full view. And Tony just stops breathing for a moment and just looks at him, _looks_ at him, the shape of his resoluteness and his indecision wrapped into one, and Tony wonders how on earth Peter Parker can keep going and going and going.

“He’s gonna be with you,” Tony says. “And I don’t know the man, but he’s proud of you. I wish I could’ve met him so we could’ve embarrassed you a little with how proud we are of you.”

Peter crumples his napkin in his fist. 

“Thanks,” the kid says, a beat too late for Tony not to think he heard the casual _we_. “That actually really means a lot.”

The boy looks up at him then, and Tony’s disconcerted a little with how much he looks like a man, ruddy still from the cold outside and maybe even a little bit from emotion, swallowed up by the swathes of hoodie and jacket around him but everything falling away from the determination cut into the line of his jaw and the glint of his eyes.

Tony knows when he’s come to a line. His relationship with Peter is full of them, really: those crossed and those he skirts around because of the muddy facets of their friendship, teacher and student, advisor and advisee, mentor and--he doesn’t know. He gets all stopped up suddenly with a blind panic that Peter will stand up and gather his backpack and walk out of his office with a pocketful of empty well wishes, and Tony won’t get to cross this line again, won’t get to see the burst of something come to life in Peter’s eyes when he says this.

“Peter. Pete--Peter.” He’s an idiot. He doesn’t know really what he was correcting in his own speech. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Is it--” God, how does he even phrase this without sounding presumptuous. “I was wondering if…” he starts and stops again. “I understand if this is really personal--”

“No--yes. Yes! Yes,” Peter says.

“Really?”

“Wait, just to be clear,” says Peter, “were you--were you asking if I’d mind if you were there?” Something about the glow of him feels like his heart might be bursting right out of his chest.

“Essentially, yeah.” Tony’s fully embarrassed now.

“Then yeah.”

“Oh.”

“No, I mean--wow, I’m an idiot. No, I don’t mind, and yes, you can come. Absolutely.” Peter fixes him with the most unwavering eye contact the man has seen from him yet, and Tony believes him, he believes him wholeheartedly.

“Like, obviously not in the surgery, but after,” Peter clarifies.

“For sure, for sure,” Tony rushes to assure him.

Christ, they’re both two idiots and a half.

“I forgot to bring coffee,” Peter says.

Tony chokes a little on his spit from the whiplash from the change in topic. “Coffee--what?”

“For the date bars. They’re really good with some strong coffee.”

Tony snaps his fingers and points at him. “You’re absolutely right, as usual. I know just the place. C’mon.” He stands and trips a little over the foot of his chair on the way to the coat tree in the corner of his office.

“I didn’t mean--now?”

“Yes, now.”

“I thought you have office hours.” Peter gathers their napkins and crumbs and tosses them in the trash, then gathers up the now half-wrapped, teetering Christmas tree of baked goods from the desk.

“Not anymore, I don’t. Let me have that,” says Tony, grabbing it from him. Peter definitely looks like he wants to argue, but Tony simply fixes him with a look and the kid’s mouth snaps shut.

“Thanks,” Peter breathes, and Tony’s pretty sure he’s thanking him for more than one thing.

“Thank _you_ ,” Tony says. Doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to, when both of them are still treading the thick uncertainty of their recent conversation and each exulting in this step forward in their relationship.

“I’m paying,” says Peter.

“No, you’re not,” says Tony. And that’s that.

\--

Secretly, in the depths of his reflection, Tony is a little relieved that Peter didn’t invite him to come with on the trip to the hospital, and only opened the door to him for visiting hours after the surgery. Tony is relieved that they’re both on the same page. Because he both loathes and is grateful for these lines that orbit him, and now he’s faced with another one, one that he knows he cannot speak to Peter about, but one he will have to decide on alone.

Tony sits behind the wheel of his car for what must be only a moment but feels like hours after he pulls into the visitor lot of the hospital. May texted him a couple hours ago that Peter could be awake any hour now, followed by a nervous emoji and a cry-laughing emoji, and honestly Tony is not that far behind her in the tangle of his emotions. He stares at the check in his hand, pressed so tight against the steering wheel that the emblem of his Beamer almost makes an indentation through the paper.

He rocks his head back against the headrest. Objectively, he and Peter talk a lot, but Peter knows precious little about him up to this point.

He doesn’t know about the swirl of remembrance in the pit of Tony’s stomach every time Peter utters the name _Uncle Ben_. Doesn’t know how Tony recalls Howard’s disembodied voice calling him into the study, recalls staring at his father’s shoes as he shrank and shrank, remembers feeling small, _being_ small, and making up new memories of his own where Howard Stark pats him on the head and calls him the best boy. _Smart_ , that’s true. _Precocious_ , he heard one too many times from his father’s own lips and repeated through his circles of academic colleagues and inventors and think tank leaders. But _good_ and _kind_ and--and _loved_ , no, these only appeared as an afterthought in the new stories Tony used to weave in his head about his father after the haranguing was over.

Peter knows none of this. Not by lack of interest, but by Tony guarding it like the last piece of him that makes him really him, tethers him in a way, or else he won’t know anymore what fruitless standard by which he needs to live his life. 

Tony remembers now the day he came home from boarding school to find a fully equipped drum set in the second garage. Maria told it all in her eyes as she opened her arms and greeted him with a kiss, because they both knew that Howard threw money at what he couldn’t fix. He and Tony had had the most frightful argument yet-- _you’re not my son_ \-- _maybe I never wanted to be_ \--and slammed doors, keys snatched off the console, turned in the ignition even as his heart galloped in his chest with fear--

He wonders now if this is what he’s doing. Tony wonders if this is a line that begs to be stepped over to reach Peter, or if it’s entirely different.

He’s never been good with words, and now is no exception, because he’s not even half-prepared to articulate why what he is about to do feels simultaneously like the rightest thing and the most wrong thing he could do in this situation.

He folds the check in half then between the pointer finger and thumb of his left hand and pockets it inside his blazer. He blows out a breath and watches it puff and condense on the windshield, grips the steering wheel into a white-knuckled tension for a second, and then opens up the door and steps out of the car.

\--

Tony recognizes the shape of May Parker with her back to him even before she hears the squeak of the door and stands up to greet him. Through the little window at the top of the door, he can make out the blur of auburn piled on top of her head and the oversized cardigan swallowing her as she hunches over the empty coffee cup between her knees, the plastic lid bitten all around the rim in her prayerful distraction.

“Hi,” she whispers as he shuts the door behind him.

“Hi,” Tony says back. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and steps toward the second chair in the room.

“He was in and out an hour ago,” May tells him. 

“You must’ve been here a while,” says Tony. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” she says, even as moisture inexplicably appears at the corners of her eyelids. “He’s seeing his dream come true, not coming home from an accident. So...objectively, it’s different. It’s good.”

“Yeah, well, no harm in letting the ol’ ticker do some somersaults along the way. I’m sure the heart doesn’t know the difference when your kid is in the OR.”

“True enough,” she concedes. Her face creases with a smile. “Was the drive over too bad?”

He purses his lips and shakes his head. “Easy peezy. Not even a blizzard could keep me away.”

A careless comment, but not an untrue one. He’s full of them, these days.

May lifts a single brow at him.

“Well, technically I _would_ be stuck on I-95 right now if there were a blizzard, but I’m the kind of guy who pledged to build a time machine when I was fifteen, so.” Tony shrugs.

May grins. “Fifteen, huh? Any chance you still got tabs on that genius little guy?”

Tony has an idea or two why she might be joking about a time machine right now. And to be fair, that’s on him and his stupidly big mouth, but he decides to roll with it. “Nah. Unfortunately, I heard he got burnout at the ripe old age of sixteen and ran away from home. Got kinda hard to convince people to finance him for inventions after that.”

She lets a morbid little giggle escape her.

He lowers his voice conspiratorially. “It’s still on his bucket list, though. In case you were wondering.”

He wonders a second after that if the little joke was cruel or comforting. He finds his answer when she crosses her arm over her stomach and swipes suspiciously at the inner corner of her eye with her other arm, and casts him a wobbly and unstable smile.

“Sometimes, Tony, I wonder where Peter comes up with all his terrible jokes lately, but then you pop in here and I realize I shouldn’t have wondered in the first place.”

He scoffs at her with a wave of his hand. “He’s got his own brand of humor. Tell him to stop double-dipping from my cellar of fine jokes and find some originality.”

“Or you could tell him yourself,” Peter says scratchily from the bed behind them.

“Shit!” says May under her breath, before she can help herself. Tony snorts.

“I have been awake for a solid minute,” Pete complains. He accepts the gentle little hug May wraps his...general head and shoulder area in, and then wiggles his fingers in Tony’s direction. “Hi, guys.”

“Hey, you,” Tony says with a step closer to the bed. “How’re you feeling?” 

May hands the boy a paper cup of water from the side table before he can answer, so Peter gulps that down first. “Hot. Itchy. Kinda like I stood up too fast and now I can actually see magenta. But, hey…” Peter’s hand shoots down to his chest, and he winces reflexively the moment he realizes he probably shouldn’t be touching anything or moving so much but can’t help it. He runs a finger contemplatively in a line down his hospital gown.

“I can--you know.” Tony gestures at the door with his head. “Give you two some privacy for the big reveal.”

May looks at the boy with raised eyebrows, seeking his opinion. Peter looks like he’s on the cusp of something. They all are, in a way. Tony’s not unaware of this.

“No, stay,” Peter decides to say. “I mean, you drove like three hours to see this.”

“To see _you_ ,” Tony corrects him, and the added _you little shit_ is undeniable in his tone.

“It’s fine, I promise,” says May. “Just for a quick peek, right?”

Tony decides to just nod and shut up then, because there may be a million things he wants to say to be encouraging and fill the space of the missing person whose shoes he’s hyper aware of filling right now, but he knows now is not the time.

The next few moments are filled with the sounds of Peter’s gown rustling and various chairs scraping backward on the linoleum as May shifts around the bed to give her nephew room to sit up on his own. The bedsheets are still covering Pete’s legs and lower area, but she’s cautious as she lifts the end of his gown up slowly over his chest. There’s a gasp, the kind that sounds like Peter tried to hold it in, and then Tony is overcome with a wash of inadequacy. He turns away as discreetly as he can and faces the adjacent wall with his hands deep in his pockets and his ears trained on the sounds of May and Peter breathing together.

Nobody talks for what could be nearly a minute. Something acutely like a sniffle escapes May, but aside from that, only slow breaths and uneven hearts fill the room.

Tony’s feet urge him to stride to the door and go. He doesn’t belong here. He’s outrun the Parkers’ kindness, but nothing in his yearning to be good for Peter has actually prepared him for a moment as important as this. He’s known all along that he’d drop the ball when it got emotional and things really mattered, like today. He wants to run to the car and lock the doors and sit there tearing up the check into pieces, not for lack of desire to help the kid, but because he’s unworthy, so unworthy.

The only thing he deserves is to go back in his head to the fake memories of the father who squeezed his shoulder and whispered in his ear for only him to hear that he was proud of him. Imaginations painted with such care that they shimmer at the edges and threaten to disintegrate if he blinks too hard.

“It’s okay, Mr. Stark, I’m decent again.”

Tony shuts his eyes and blows out a breath. He never meant to make this about him. He steels himself and clears his throat like he’s been trained to do. Then he swivels back around on his heel and says without missing another beat: “Sorry, Pete. Just really felt like you guys needed some privacy there.”

Neither of the Parkers pushes the point further.

May’s definitely weeping now, and she no longer makes an effort to hide it. “We probably should’ve called the nurse in by now. I mean, definitely. But a tiny peek was--” Words fail her.

“It was good,” Peter says simply. He sucks in a huge breath, tries to slap his palms to his cheeks, then remembers that he can hardly move his arms, and settles on a quiet little scream. May huffs out a laugh in the middle of her crying like she wasn’t expecting that, but really, she isn’t surprised by her boy at all.

Tony curves up a brow at him. “Oh, yeah? Feels that good to get it off your chest?”

Peter’s expression morphs so rapidly from pure elation to flat disappointment that even Tony, in the midst of his self-loathing, has to cackle at it. “Mr. Stark. Tell me _honestly_ how long you’ve been waiting to tell that joke.”

“I may have utilized Google.”

“You’re banned from teaching me any jokes, like, ever.”

“Cut me some slack, Parker. This is the first time I get to make a trans joke without it feeling weird.”

Peter sniffs. “Slack cut,” he says magnanimously.

“Oh, no,” says May. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“Signed my death warrant by Mr. Stark’s trans memes? Probably. Do I regret it? Absolutely.”

“Someone has to physically tape a sticky note to my forehead to remind me _not_ to slap you on the arm when you say stuff like that,” May says. “Or on any part of your upper body, actually, for that matter.”

“I feel like we need actual professional medical advice beyond _don’t touch the incisions because ouch_ ,” Tony muses.

“Should we call the doctor now?” asks May.

“Yeah, should we?” Tony echoes. “I feel like we’re committing some kinda crime in here, taking peeks and letting Pete here sit up all on his lonesome self.”

May rolls her eyes. “I’ll get the doctor.”

“No, I can do it--”

“No, _I_ will do it, because I’m not done yet having a good cry and I need to go to the ladies’ room for that,” May says candidly. She fixes both of them with a stare. “And I’m getting a Cinnabon from downstairs. So don’t expect me back for at least ten minutes. You want some?”

“Yes, please,” the two chorus.

“I’ll make you some Hershey Kiss cookies when we get home so you can continue your cry over some more sugar,” Peter promises.

“No,” says May, turning on her heel at the door to point at her nephew. “ _No_. You’ll pull all your stitches and burn something, probably, and then I’ll be crying for real.”

Tony plops down in the nearby chair and pats Peter on the knee as May disappears. “Let her have this one, kid. I’ll just send you both a week of DoorDash so you don’t have to worry about her cooking.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

The realization hits both of them belatedly. Peter stiffens, while Tony finds himself already cracking a smile.

“Mr. Stark, I am so sorry, I just--wow.”

“Nope. No take-backs now. It’s been a long time coming.”

“It’s weird,” says Peter.

“Calling me by my God-given name? Actually not as weird as me sitting here in the middle of Queens watching you in a hospital gown while your aunt’s crying downstairs over a Cinnabon.”

“That’s not weird. _You’re_ making this weird.”

“You’re weird.”

“Wow. We really were not made for the humanities.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Tony quips, raising his hand for a fist bump. “Metaphorically, of course. I promise I haven’t relapsed.”

Predictably, Peter goes a little cross-eyed trying to decide which part of that statement to unpack and then realizing he’s better off leaving it.

“Thanks for coming,” Peter says.

“Like I told your aunt: not even a blizzard could stop me.”

“Like, I’m not saying this because you’re my advisor or anything or because we met at school,” Peter clarifies. “I literally mean it. Friend to friend, I guess. I’m glad you got my back.”

That stings in ways that Tony doesn’t have the time or emotional capacity to understand right now. But the other, more rational part of him sees that Peter means every word and somehow--bizarrely--really sees Tony as a loyal presence in his life.

“Always,” Tony says before he can stop himself from getting drunk on promises. “And, uh...this might be a bad time to mention...but I meant what I said before, Pete. Your uncle would be proud of you.”

Peter bites his lip and almost looks away, but he doesn’t. He looks straight at Tony instead. It feels--momentous.

“And I’m positive that he’s here right now. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Neither of them have noticed until this point that Tony’s hand is still resting on the curve of Peter’s knee. Now the boy inches his hand forward and wraps his fingers carefully around Tony’s.

Tony’s breath catches a little. He waits for it to slam into him, for him to be sucked in by the feeling of how this is all wrong, but it never comes.

It never comes, because honesty may come in little steps, but those steps can shift an entire world for them both.

“I’ve got something for you,” says Tony.

“Is this the mysterious thing that was here but not here?”

“...Kind of?”

“Oh, no,” says Pete, but he still doesn’t let go.

“It feels kind of weird to pull it out of my pocket,” says Tony, conveniently sidestepping the fact that that would also involve him pulling his hand out of Peter’s, “so I’ll just tell you about it. It’s--uh. First, I’d ask you not to be upset with me.”

“Professor voice,” Peter notes. “So serious.”

Tony attempts and fails at sternness. “Very serious. I mean it.”

“Okay, I promise not to be upset.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh my God,” Peter says.

“Okay, okay.” Better to just bite the bullet, he decides. “I...mighthavemadeoutachecktoMaytopayforthesurgery,” he gets out in a rush.

Peter doesn’t move a single inch, save to widen his eyes and fix them on his mentor.

“Oops,” Tony tacks on.

“I think I’m definitely seeing the color magenta,” Peter says.

“Merry Christmas?”

“No--Tony-- _stop_ , no, _no_ Merry Christmas--”

“Shit, my bad. Happy Hanukkah?”

“I am Jewish, but that’s not the point,” Peter huffs.

“You said you weren’t gonna be upset.”

“I admit I was stupid and I said that before hearing what you were going to say.”

“Please just--don’t say anything,” Tony pleads. “I’m breaking out in literal hives. If one of you has to be mad about this, please just let it be your aunt.” He squeezes his eyes shut and looks away.

“You’re so dramatic,” says the kid. “I’m not mad. I’m more like...floored.”

“Oh,” Tony breathes out. He looks back at Pete. “Oh, okay. Floored is...good. Floored, I can work with.”

“I don’t know how to tell you this, but I literally cannot process thought right now,” Peter clarifies.

“That’s fine. We’ll save the details for later.”

Peter opens and closes his mouth once, and then several times. Under different circumstances, Tony would absolutely be losing it right now over his speechlessness.

Later on, both of them notice (to Peter’s neverending chagrin) that the boy completely forgets to say _thank you_ , but the weight of it unsaid on Peter’s tongue right now is never lost on Tony. He sees. He understands.

“Are you crying?” Tony asks him bluntly.

“ _No_ ,” Peter snivels. “I told you this before. I can’t cry because of T.”

“That sounds...extremely inaccurate, but I’ll let it slide.” Tony turns his hand slowly, cautiously, to make sure that Pete doesn’t let go, and moves until his hand is palm up. Now it’s his turn to grip Peter’s fingers with his own on top of the kid’s knee.

“I don’t know how I’ll pay you back,” Peter whispers.

“You can start by calling me Tony from now on,” Tony says smartly.

Peter levels him with a look. “I’m serious.”

“Okay. Sure. Then how about this: live your life. Live your _best_ life, and never try to apologize again for who you are. Take your happiness and run with it.” _Take it_ , Tony adds silently in his heart, _because some of us didn’t do that at your age and waited until it was almost too late_.

 _And I want you to be better_.

“Take it, Peter. I promise you, that’s all the repayment I’ll ever need.”

**Author's Note:**

> I definitely sidestepped some medical facts and accuracies in describing the scene where Peter wakes up after surgery. There's a lot more doctor/nurse supervision in the situation, from what I gather, but for the sake of the vibe of the scene I had to employ a bit more poetic license.
> 
> Writing the last scene was a little hard, I admit? I'm still so far from transitioning that immersing myself in a scene where I had to think through top surgery itself felt a little painful. At the same time, I'm planning on coming out in February, which draws nearer and nearer by the day and I couldn't anticipate it any more. The closer the day gets, and the closer the possibility of transition seems, the further away it also feels.
> 
> Still, this week has been rough, so writing this was therapeutic! I hope you enjoyed some part of it, too. I'd truly appreciate a word of feedback from you in the comments. Thank you always for reading and sticking with my content, and I love you all so much <3 -kaleb
> 
> my socials:  
> tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell  
> wattpad: kalebbarrie  
> insta: kc.barrie
> 
> edit: i ended up coming out to my mom on new year's eve, much earlier than anticipated. it went badly, but just scrolling through all of your supportive and loving comments has literally been getting me through this rough patch. I cannot stress this enough: I FREAKING LOVE YOU.


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